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 Originally Posted by JKDS
Wuf, you've described a situation where someone took tomatoes from someone else. Both parties claimed the right to own those tomatoes. Libertarians would say that the farmer rightfully owns them because it's the product of labor. Others would say might makes right.
Without law, all you have is a taking...with one person peeved about it.
If the law is what makes a particular type of taking wrongful, then it means that morality is determined by law. I think most people have a different idea of where morality comes from (even among those who are amoral). People don't think killing is wrong because the law says so; people think it's wrong for some other reasons that probably have more to do with natural visceral human disgust with it and how it dismantles social order. It's also wrong by custom before it's wrong by statute or legal precedent.
Additionally, according to the law, pretty much the only reason why taxation is not called theft is because it's legal. If you take all the elements of what the law calls theft and superimpose them on taxation, you end up finding something that would be called theft if it wasn't that those who write the law say it's not. It's because of this double standard that a lot of people cut to the chase and just call it theft. It's like if little Susie punched little Timmy and little Timmy told his mom little Susie punched him and his mom said that little Susie didn't punch him because girls can't punch and instead they "splunch."
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